The topsy-turvy world of Summer Cup ante-post betting

If you’d backed current Summer Cup favourite Barahin when first entries for Joburg’s biggest race came out on 25 September you could have got 17-2 with the bookmakers. This week, after the deadline for second entries, the best price on the horse was 2-1.

That’s the vagaries of ante-post betting for you. It’s a big gamble, but it’s tempting. And you have a way better chance of winning than you do on the Lotto.

If you’d taken those early odds on Barahin, and knew a tad about the arcane worlds of futures and arbitrage, you could now be making a tidy profit flogging your betting slip – a full three weeks before the horses set hoof on the Turffontein turf.

By contrast, if you’d backed Hawwaam – Barahin’s stablemate in the Mike de Kock yard – at the first entry stage you’d be crying into your beer now. That “boom horse” opened up as 18-10 favourite but dropped right off the boards last week when the trainer announced the colt wouldn’t line up in the Gauteng Chris Gerber Summer Cup on 30 November and would, instead, focus on the Cape summer season.

Wagers on volatile Hawwaam went up in smoke. Bookies must earn a crust, you know.

If you’d opted for a third De Kock early entry, in the shape of Soqrat, at 9-2 second-favouritism, you might be a bit nonplussed. This brilliant miler stood his ground at second-entry stage but had ballooned in the market to 16-1.

This amazing drift was despite the colt winning a Pinnacle Stakes at Turffontein impressively in October. Keen-eyed punters were quickly onto the apparent bargain and the pencil men were forced to slash the offering to 10-1 by midday Wednesday.

A further tightening of Soqrat is surely possible, and if you’d been canny enough to pick up some of that 16-1 you’d be laughing. The Australian import glories in a 131 Merit Rating and sits atop the latest Summer Cup log – the official handicappers’ assessment of a likely final field.

Some of Soqrat’s drift was due to yet another De Kock entry, the mare Cascapedia, shortening dramatically from 25-1 to 7-1 – suggesting a flood of smart money.

I must hasten to add that none of this implies market manipulation by the De Kock operation in any way. The Randjesfontein maestro just happens to have some of the best racehorses in the country in his care and they are likely to be near the fore of most big-race betting moves. Punters will be punters, and gossip, rumours and whispers can tip markets in a trice.

For example, De Kock’s great rival Sean Tarry has the progressive Zillzaal among the Cup “possibles” and he has plunged from 25-1 to 7-1 current second-favouritism following a smart victory in a warm-up race and, doubtless, confident vibes from the cognoscenti.

A clutch of Summer Cup raiders from Durban have also been victim to market vicissitudes.

Trainer Frank Robinson’s entry Roy Had Enough was 40-1 in that first call but had been whipped down to 8-1 by Wednesday. In the interim, Roy Had Enough has run once – after a three-month break in the aforementioned Soqrat warm-up race, in which he finished a five-length-back fourth.

Meanwhile, another East Coast hopeful, Marchingontogether from Gavin van Zyl’s stable, has gone walkabout from 18-1 to 40-1.

Follow the money, they say. But, as the Summer Cup shows, with very early ante-post betting, it ain’t easy.

By the way, you can get 9-2 on Hawwaam for the Sun Met in February 2020. Oh, and 13-1 Soqrat; 15-1 Barahin, and 25-1 Zillzaal.

For the 2020 Durban July: 9-1 Hawwaam; 16-1 Barahin; 18-1 Zillzaal, and 100-1 Soqrat.

Feel tempted?

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